Books like Brandon Sanderson Sampler: The Way of Kings and Mistborn

To be honest, I didn't find Mistborn as interesting as The Way of Kings. In part, I think that this is because The Way of Kings, with its depth of worldbuilding, reminded me of J-RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles or the Tales series -- games that I'm interested in mostly for their stories and characters. Needless to say, I'm definitely going to be picking up The Way of Kings when I get a chance. Mistborn, on the other hand, is just a story with a ho-hum world but a unique magic system. And I know that Brandon Sanderson is a fan of making and writing about magic systems, but the magic system alone isn't enough to hook me. Why? Because I find the story's setting a little incongruous with the rest of what's going on. I just wasn't able to suspend my disbelief enough to make the apparently mega-city-centered world work for myself. Though, perhaps the snippets before each chapter are to blame; they seem to tell the story of how the world came to be the way it is, and give off the same sort of epic fantasy vibe that something like R. Scott Bakker's fantasy has. Or maybe I just shouldn't have read The Way of Kings first. :PI definitely enjoyed reading the samples of both of these books, but for me The Way of Kings is the clear winner.